Menu

It’s time to stop throwing away our phones!

Dave Hakkens is a genius. If the world is looking to find the next Steve Jobs, he’s our man. Dave sees that most people throw their smartphones away usually because of one thing. Not enough storage. Camera is outdated. Not the latest this and that. The problem of course is that with billions of smartphones in the world, the e-waste is starting to pile up. And it’s only going to get worse as new devices are released every other month it seems. So Dave has envisioned Phonebloks; a revolutionary idea for a smartphone that wouldn’t need to be thrown away. A smartphone made out of interchangeable blocks that you could modify to fit your needs. It’s brilliant and could just be the next big thing.

Say you prefer to use your DSLR for photos. Then you could downgrade or remove the camera block on the phone and add a bigger storage block. Store everything in the cloud? Shrink the storage block and add a bigger battery block. The idea is that if something breaks or becomes outdated, you could just swap that part out and minimize the amount of junk you contribute to the world. And in the process it would give us all what we truly want — a fully customizable device. If companies don’t get behind this they’re just throwing money away (I see “bloks” becoming as popular as “apps” in a few years).

This is all just a dream for Dave so far and nothing has been built or funded. But he’s trying to get people to support it. Not by asking for money, but by creating a Thunderclap of supporters that will be unleashed on the world on October 29. He’s hoping to have 750,00 people signed up by then (he’s 98% there now) so that the world will take notice that we need “a phone worth keeping”.

Check out the video about Phonebloks below and let me know what you think. Is this something you’d get behind? Think it’s a good idea? Share your thoughts in the comments, drop me an email at brian@bamcat.com or Tweet me @bamcat.